


All Hail the King

by shieldivarius



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Canon What Canon, Crack Treated Seriously, Enthusiastic Consent, F/F, Flirting, Infidelity, Nipple Play, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:09:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27464719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldivarius/pseuds/shieldivarius
Summary: Larxene had no desire to play pirates. But playingwithone, well, that was different.
Relationships: Larxene/Elizabeth Swann
Kudos: 8





	All Hail the King

**Author's Note:**

> This came about from a conversation about the dearth of wlw content in KH fandom, and going through the entire cast of female characters to find a woman who not only could keep up with Larxene, but who had reason to bother. (Meg was our runner up, but who needs Larxene when you have Herc?)
> 
> Enjoy!

The first time Larxene landed in the Caribbean, it was storming.

Lightning lashed the horizon, and while the centre of the turmoil was too far out at sea for the echoing thunder to reach her ears, the rain poured down all the same, a thick curtain that drenched the deserted port. Potential sizzled in the air, calling to the lightning stirring within her and urging her to lend a hand in whipping up the storm. But with no one foolish enough to stand around in the rain, no one braving the piers with the waves cresting over them, and thus no one around to witness any chaos she might add to the mix, Larxene kept her magic to herself. 

With water rolling down her nose and starting to trickle onto her neck despite her raised hood, she ducked into the nearest open building: a public house with a vulgar painting on the sign and a name illegible in the darkness, the candle hanging next to it having long since sputtered out in the torrent of rain. 

It was drier inside than outside, but that was all the place had to recommend it. The noise of the patrons almost drowned out the thudding of the downpour on the roof, a wall of sound that threatened to swallow her up and made it hard to think. Larxene slipped past one drunkard, and then another, wending around people deep in their cups until she found an empty table in a dark enclave at the back of the room. She wrinkled her nose, the stench of sour vomit and unwashed bodies worse here than it had been at the entrance, and with an added odour in this back corner suggesting the ladies present didn’t always bother guiding their patrons somewhere more private.

She took a careful look at the seat of her chair before she sat.

As far as _weathering the storm_ plans went, she could have picked a better one. But this world was free of “precious lights” and rain and bawdy, unruly crowds made a welcome change of scenery from the frigid climes of Arendelle. Even better, in a place full of whores, thieves and, likely, murderers, such as this, she didn’t think she ran any risk of running into an errant, wandering Guardian of Light. 

“So I says, I says, ‘ _l_ _ook, I’m not followin’ no lady Pirate King. You ken find me in Tortuga when it’s all over.’_ An’ I came right back here.”

 _Tortuga_. Well, that confirmed where she was, anyway. She watched the two men over at the next table, keeping her head inclined and hidden in her hood. The speaker had a woman on his knee, her corset crooked, the laces loosened, and he fondled one of her breasts where it spilled out over the top of it. None of the three had remarked on Larxene’s passing, and in her coat she practically disappeared into the shadows save for the reflection of the candlelight against the shine of the leather if she moved wrong. Convenient for spying, even if she didn’t particularly enjoy the show that came with it.

“Weren’t she some English cunt?”

“Outta Port Royal. Threw in her lot wi’ Sparrow, now _Pirate King_. Na. You wait. This’ll all blow over and her crew’ll mutiny and kill the haughty bitch. Then these waters’ll be right for honest piratin’ again.”

Larxene rolled her eyes and flipped a kunai up into her fingers, twirled it around once, then twice and kept flicking it as she spoke. “Is _that_ what passes for honest these days?”

She snickered at the surprise, and then anger, that crossed their faces when they realized she’d been eavesdropping. She kept twirling the kunai in case either of them got some bright idea about trying to start something, but leaned forward with her elbow propped on the table, chin resting on the back of her hand. “Well?”

The whore slapped the man’s hand off her chest. “Too rough,” she snapped at him when he turned his glare from Larxene to her. Then she looked back at Larxene. “Who’re you?”

The charge in the air decreased as the weather beyond the walls shifted, and Larxene felt less as though she might start crackling at any moment. She shifted to ease the stiffness from her shoulders—stiffness from holding herself back from causing the scene she wanted to cause—then she pushed back her hood.

They recoiled, her golden eyes no doubt inspiring thoughts of curses and superstition. 

“That’s not important,” she said lightly, into the bubble of quiet left by their shock. “Where can I find this ‘Pirate King’?” 

Without the edges of her hood cutting off her range of vision, she could see that the man with the whore had silver replacements for most of his teeth, and short, rough-shorn hair that looked like it had been hacked off recently. She wrinkled her nose. His table-mate wasn’t much better, with his mud-stained cap pulled low on his brow and a scar cutting from the edge of his nostril across his cheek to the bottom of his left ear. 

“Out to sea,” the prostitute said. She wore her hair in shiny, bleached yellow curls that were starting to tumble down from being handled, and the red stain on her lips was smudged, but she, at least, looked more presentable—cleaner—than the men. Equally suspicious, but more like she thought Larxene might be angling to scoop away her customer base.

She shuddered at the thought.

“Any idea when she plans on returning?”

“Maybe next week, maybe never,” the blonde said, tone dismissive. “Why, tiny waif of a thing, you think you wanna sign up?”

To be a pirate? No, thank you. That was Luxord’s game, and she’d leave him to it. But _King_ of anything meant some sort of power, and finding the power in this world sounded more interesting than 1) going back to the Keyblade Graveyard and 2) hanging around here.

“Just curious,” Larxene said. “Sounds fun.”

“There are a lot of ships make berth here. Jack Sparrow and his ilk, all of them, are trouble. Bit of free advice, stay out of their way.” All three looked at her skeptically, and Larxene expected the next question to be how she’d gotten to this island if she didn’t know anything about the waters it was found in. She didn’t blend in here, but really, if the choice was standing out or dressing up as a discount whore, she’d take standing out. 

“I’ll take it under advisement,” she said and rose. She kept the kunai flipping in her fingers in case either of the men—or the whore, for that matter, who probably had a shiv hiding somewhere in her dress—got any smart ideas as she walked past. The man with the cap waved a hand at her in a warding-off gesture.

“One more piece of free advice, girl,” the blonde said. “Stop talkin’ so pretty.”

Larxene forced a tight, sarcastic smile instead of responding, and made her exit. The men muttered in her wake. 

By Larxene’s count, her second visit to the Caribbean didn’t come long after the first. She landed in Port Royal this time, targeting her corridor to the place where the pirates had said the Pirate King was from instead of forcing herself to deal with Tortuga and its odours again. The sun shone high, no signs of the recent storm, not even in fallen roof thatching or downed tree branches across the beach. She’d felt the size of the storm, felt the rage of the lightning in the sky, and didn’t think this island could have been spared. 

Time flowed differently on every world. This one must be faster than most, for the people to have cleaned up so thoroughly already.

A bustling market stood on the beach and Larxene made her way through it, listening to snippets of conversation and collecting what gossip she could.

“The governor’s daughter? Yes, I heard she’d returned.”

“Miss Swann—”

“I heard she’s married.”

“Crabs! Fresh caught crabs!”

“To some pirate?”

“No, no. To the blacksmith’s apprentice. Turner.”

“Crabs! Priced to sell!”

“The blacksmith’s apprentice is dead.”

“I heard the governor’s dead, too.”

“Isn’t she calling herself Mrs. Turner?”

“Crabs!”

“No, he went back to England.”

“Well it wasn’t a _real_ wedding.”

“If the governor’s dead, what’s that mean for his daughter?”

“ _CRABS_!”

Larxene traded a handful of munny for a barbecued piece of fish on a stick and made her way down the road, having heard enough. With the conversation centred on _Miss Swann_ or _Mrs. Turner_ or whatever name she was going by, the safest assumption was that she was one in the same as the Pirate King she’d heard about on her last visit. And the “governor’s daughter” certainly lived in the largest house in the port. So whether or not she and the Pirate King were one in the same, the governor’s house could still hold something of interest.

Even though she knew the Organization had never been interested in this world for any possibility of a heart of pure light, Larxene was still relieved that she couldn’t sense any sort of power from the house, nor from the woman standing out on at the edge of the property and watching the sea through the gaps in the wrought iron fence, as she approached. 

She wore a man’s coat that had been tailored down to fit her and knee-high boots, with her hair styled in neat pin curls gathered up on the back of her head, just the thinnest wisps hanging down. She looked like money, and status, not a servant or a guard.

“Are you the Pirate King?” Larxene asked. Why beat around the bush, really?

The woman’s shoulders stiffened, and she started to turn before appearing to think better of it and returning to face the water again, keeping her back to Larxene.

“Who’s asking?”

A yes, then. “I’m Larxene.”

“And why are you here?”

“I heard a rumour in Tortuga and wanted to know more,” Larxene said. “I didn’t think pirates lived in mansions.”

The Pirate King did turn, then, and Larxene glimpsed a short knife belted at her waist beneath the folds of the coat before she got caught up in how well she wore it—it, being both the coat and the aura of danger that came with the knife. She pulled her gaze up from tracing down past the King’s waist to meet her eyes and the calculation set in her features.

“Your information’s old,” she said. “I gave up that title, so if you’ve come to kill me for it, you’re out of luck.”

Larxene’s first thought was that those men in the public house in Tortuga would be so happy to hear that. Her second was to try and recalculate how much faster time passed here than on other worlds. Had weeks passed, to her one night off-world? Enough time for this woman to come back from sea and decide she didn’t want to be the Pirate King anymore?

“What’s your name, then, if it’s not ‘Your Highness’? You know mine.”

“You can call me Mrs. Turner.”

Larxene raised an eyebrow. “So formal,” she said. 

Mrs. Turner didn’t shrug. She stared down Larxene instead, her expression imperious. Maybe she said she wasn’t King any longer, but her countenance and poise said otherwise. Though, she was also apparently a wealthy woman, so perhaps _Her Highness_ came by that naturally.

“If that’s all you’ve come for, you can leave.”

Larxene smiled. After Tortuga, she may have expected the steely personality, but she hadn’t expected a package quite so attractive when she’d heard the words _Pirate King_. Now that she had seen _Mrs. Turner,_ her decision to seek her out looked even better. 

“Why?” she asked, and took a step forward. The King’s hand shifted like she might grab for her belt knife. Larxene didn’t doubt she could use it, but she _did_ doubt she’d make an adequate opponent. Maybe she’d be surprised.

Oh, but she _wanted_ to be surprised.

Her Highness looked disgusted. “Because I’ve asked you to, and if you aren’t after my title, then it seems you’ve come for nothing more than to bother me, which I’m hardly going to stand for.” 

“You just said you renounced that title,” Larxene pointed out. “Were you lying, _your Highness_?”

A furious look, more at the mocking moniker than the accusation. “No, I wasn’t _lying_ . I renounced my title and my position in the Brethren Court besides. If you’ve come looking for a Pirate Lord you’re _too late_. Go find—” she looked frustrated, and threw up the hand that wasn’t grabbing for the hilt of her weapon. “ _Jack Sparrow_ if you’re so inclined to start trouble. I’m sure he’d be a match for you.”

Then she looked Larxene up and down, as though she hadn’t really been looking at her before, and seemed to register her outlandish dress. “Who _are_ you?”

Larxene smiled. “Larxene,” she said. “I said that.”

“Your name doesn’t tell me anything about who you are. Obviously you’re a pirate, but whose colours do you sail under?”

She didn’t know enough about sailing or piracy to offer up an adequate lie to that question. “I’m for hire.”

Her Highness looked like she doubted the verity of that claim. “Your best bet would be to go back to Tortuga then. I’m sure someone there is looking for sailors. I’m certainly not.”

Married—widowed, maybe, based on the rumours in the market—and giving up what sounded like a prestigious title besides. Larxene watched Her Highness for a moment longer. Then she shrugged a shoulder and smiled. 

“Okay,” she said, making her voice as cheery as she could. Her Highness grimaced at the pitch. “I know where to find you now, at least. Unless you’re planning on leaving?”

The other woman narrowed her eyes. Larxene took another step, shrinking the distance between them, and she narrowed them even further.

“I suppose you do,” she said. “I don’t take well to unannounced visitors.” She pulled her blade.

Larxene stepped away again. “I’ll let you know when to expect me, then. Watch for the lightning. Then you’ll know.” She winked, playfully, for good measure. 

Her Highness frowned. “Lightning? Like a storm?”

Larxene put a finger to her lips, tempted to reach out for the other woman’s but not willing to bait her more _just_ yet. “Shh. Our secret.”

And she left her there, watching her—her, not the ocean—as she walked away. And hopefully, she’d made enough of an impression that Her Highness would be wondering about her when she was out of sight.

Larxene didn’t wait until the next day of off-world time to make her third visit. She left the Caribbean long enough to make sure she wasn’t missed elsewhere, and then went right back.

Even so, when she emerged from her corridor into the market in Port Royal, she could tell more than a couple of days had passed in the hours she’d been away. What a strangely paced world. It was no wonder Luxord liked it so much, if he could venture off here for a couple of days and be gone mere hours in the between worlds. If she could figure out the timing of it—if there was rhyme or reason for it, that was, since for some worlds there wasn’t—she might start liking it herself.

Standing on a white sand beach, surrounded by palm trees, was a lot better than being chased after by a couple of brats with Keyblades. She took a deep breath, tasted the salt air, and looked out past the bustling piers to the horizon across the water. She’d arrived at dusk, and someone had started walking along the docks, lighting hanging candles. She’d probably missed her chance to catch Her Highness outdoors, unless she spent all her time staring out over the ocean.

She stepped down into the market and then ventured through the darkening port, looking for a place where she might be able to find that information. A more reputable public house than the one she’d ended up in in Tortuga would be a good start. Just as people gossiped about their bosses, they gossiped about feudal lords, or governors, or whatever the ruling class structure was on this world. The Pirate King in the house on the hill had been the hot topic of discussion in the market last time, maybe the scuttlebutt hadn’t moved on yet. 

Larxene spent an hour at the tavern. Long enough to learn they served bad beer, that Her Highness’s given name was Elizabeth, and that she still lived up in the governor’s mansion but had dismissed most of the staff and was rumoured to have either sold the property, to be in the middle of selling the property, or to be involved in converting it into a home for wayward pirates and the debauchery that went with them.

She’d finally left when she couldn’t hold a straight face through imaging the lady running a halfway house for pirates out of a mansion in Port Royal. There was a sense among the patrons in the pub that Elizabeth was a wild, free spirit of a woman— _“not a proper lady, too much freedom as a child”_ —and that that spirit made her unpredictable. Intriguing.

She’d almost reached the gate when she remembered she was supposed to announce her presence. Rolling her eyes, she looked up at the night sky—clear, not a cloud in it and the moon hanging nearly full—and kindled a Thundaga spell in her fingertips. The lightning shot down and through her, scorched the grass beneath her feet, and thunder cracked through the air. Beneath the booming echoes of the thunder bouncing across the cliffs on the island, she could hear the gate rattle with the force of the sound. No doubt the windows in the mansion had done the same.

With the smell of ozone sharp and familiar in her nostrils, Larxene sashayed to the great double front door of the house. It swung open a moment before she grabbed the knocker, leaving Larxene standing there with her hand raised, regarding Elizabeth. She wore men’s clothing again, a loose shirt with lacing at the neck that had been left casually untied and hung, rakishly parted to tease more than a little skin underneath. Below her collarbones the skin was paler, less windburned than her face. And Her Highness looked, as she had when they parted, irritated.

Catching herself staring, Larxene dropped her hand. “ _Your Highness,_ ” she said, as though she hadn’t learned Elizabeth’s name at all.

“Are you related to Calypso, then?” Elizabeth asked. She didn’t make any move to invite Larxene inside the house which was, frankly, rude, but predictable.

“ _Who_?” 

“Calypso. The sea goddess. The witch.” She gestured up at the sky. “The sky has been completely clear all day, not a storm or wind to be had. You made the lightning.”

Larxene crossed her arms. “I said I would.”

“You said to watch for it. You never said a word about _creating_ it. I expected you would play to drama and show up when it was raining. There isn’t even a hint of rain.”

For the sake of _world order_ she should lie and suggest there was a storm brewing. Of course, the woman she was talking to was a Pirate King and Larxene could only imagine that entailed some knowledge—a sixth sense, even—of weather patterns, to go with the sailing knowledge. Besides, she didn’t care about world order anyway.

“Maybe I did,” she said, and shrugged. She offered a sly smile. “But I _don’t_ perform on demand, so _don’t_ ask me to repeat it.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Her Highness said. She turned a disinterested eye on Larxene. “But, since you’ve mentioned it…” she trailed off and looked up at the sky. “I suppose it must be too dark to see the clouds that caused it, then? They must have rolled in after sunset. After all, it’s impossible for a person to _create_ lightning.”

Offence rolled through her and Larxene glared. “You _just_ accused me of being some _sea goddess_ and now it’s _impossible_ for a person to create lightning?” she demanded.

Elizabeth shrugged, a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth. “Prove me wrong.”

Larxene searched her face, but Elizabeth merely stood there, smirking, and waiting.

“You have to invite me in if I do.”

Her Highness shrugged. “If I’m satisfied that you’re showing me real magic and not trickery.”

“Oh, I’m _real_ ,” Larxene said. She held out her hand, palm up, and with barely a thought kindled a small ball of Thunder spell in the cup it made.

Elizabeth inhaled sharply, then leaned in to get a closer look. 

Larxene dropped her hand away and let the spell dissipate with a snicker. “It’s _lightning_ , don’t get closer to it unless you want to get _shocked_.” 

Elizabeth straightened. “You still haven’t told me what your interest is in me.” 

“And _you_ said you’d invite me in if I performed for you. Looks like neither of us is going to get what we want, doesn’t it?” 

Elizabeth paused for a moment and stared at her, a calculating look in her eye. Then she took a step back, leaving the threshold free for Larxene to cross. “Fine.” 

Larxene offered up a sarcastic smile and slipped past her into the foyer. A bare sword lay on the hall table, close enough that Elizabeth could have grabbed it up if Larxene had offered violence at the door instead of banter, and other than that and a lit, three-branch candelabra set with new tapers, the room was empty, the house quiet. 

Elizabeth bolted the door behind them and picked up her sword. She didn’t brandish it, merely held it by her side, but she looked comfortable with it, and ready to use it at a moment’s notice. A surge of pleasure shot through Larxene at the sight. 

“Are we just going to stand here in the hall?” Larxene asked.

“You’ve gotten your entry to my house,” Elizabeth said. “Now you can answer my question: What is your interest in me?”

Larxene smiled, coy and sultry, and traced down the Pirate King’s body with a slow glance. The loose shirt nipped in at her small waist and tucked into belted pants, and her feet were bare where they poked out from the pools of the hems. Her gaze lingered on the hand holding her sword, the hint of power in her grip, before she met Elizabeth’s eyes again.

Her Highness rolled her eyes, expression vexed and her upper lip curled in a sneer. “I’m _married_.”

Larxene raised an eyebrow, turned and paced further into the foyer. She looked up the staircase, ran her hand across the carved wooden cap of the end of the handrail. “Widowed,” she said. The rumour mill hadn’t been consistent on this part. Most of them thought the newly named _Mrs. Turner_ had taken the name after losing her fiance, boyfriend, paramour or whatever in some great pirate battle. The rest of them, the superstitious minority, said he was bound to some phantom ship and could only stand on land once every ten years.

The latter had become more likely when Elizabeth, who seemed rather reasonable, all things considered, had accused her of being a sea witch.

“Will isn’t _dead_.”

Oh, there it was.

“No? What’s your _plan_ then?” Larxene asked and turned back to face her. She was met with the pointy end of Elizabeth’s sword, inches from her chin. In her bare feet, she hadn’t heard the woman come closer. Shame on her. She put two fingers on the flat of it, tried to push it away, but Elizabeth pressed back and held it steady. “Hide away in this big house and have one great—I’m being generous, _is_ it great?—bang every ten years? _Bor_ ing.”

Elizabeth’s eyes flashed like she was contemplating running Larxene through. But all she did was let out a frustrated noise and slash the blade downward in a whistle before she spun and stomped back across the room.

“Was that a yes?”

“Get out!”

Larxene laughed. “And go where?” she asked. “It’s dark out. _Surely_ you aren’t going to make me go out all by myself?”

Still with her back to Larxene, Her Highness let out an angry exhale. “You should have thought of that before you came up here,” she said. “Besides, with your little magic trick outside, I’m certain you can take care of yourself.”

“Maybe. But this is such a big, _lonely_ house,” Larxene said. She moved slowly toward Elizabeth, punctuating each word with a deliberate step, the clack of her heels on the tile floor announcing her movement. Elizabeth didn’t move, and Larxene came to a stop behind her. Even in her heels, she was shorter than the other woman was in bare feet.

“And the rooms are closed.”

“Even yours?”

“You’re _embarrassingly forward_ , aren’t you?”

“You aren’t acting as uninterested as you think you are,” Larxene pointed out. “I’m not the one armed here, but you haven’t even tried to run me out with that sword. Actually, _you_ invited _me_ in.”

“Because you _demanded_ it!”

Larxene shrugged. “And with your big sword, I’m _sure_ you can take care of yourself. If you _wanted_ to.” She raised a hand, reached out so she nearly brushed the ends of Elizabeth’s hair.

Her Highness took that moment to spin around. She stared down her nose at her, and Larxene smiled, unabashed at being caught, and shifted to play with the edge of the laced collar of her shirt instead, her heavy glove very dark against the light cotton.

When she didn’t pull away, smack at Larxene’s hand, or raise her sword again, Larxene batted her eyelashes and gazed up through them. “So? Can I stay?”

Elizabeth jerked away, her cheeks faintly pink. “There’s a chaise in the drawing room where you can sleep. Be gone by sunrise.” When Larxene raised an eyebrow, she added, “Don’t press my hospitality.”

“Not even for a goodnight kiss?”

The immediate stinging of her cheek answered that question. Larxene laughed in her wake as Elizabeth stormed up the stairs, the hand she’d slapped Larxene with clenched into a fist. 

“Sunrise!” she shouted down without looking back.

Still snickering to herself, Larxene went to find the drawing room, and from there opened a corridor off-world. Absence made the _heart_ grow fonder, after all.

She lost two more days off-world doing Xehanort’s bidding, and spending the time imagining undressing one Pirate King. The fantasies didn’t make dealing with Luxord or Xigbar any better, but at least they provided a good distraction. But her fantasies of Elizabeth in that coat she’d been wearing the first time they met—fantasies of divesting her of it regardless of how well she wore it—weren’t anywhere near an acceptable substitute for finding out how it felt to actually do it.

Nor an acceptable substitute for getting Her Highness to admit she was interested.

Larxene didn’t bother with a detour through the town this time—she knew what she was after, and the only additional information she might want to gather would come directly from Elizabeth herself. Though if she got her way this visit would have a lot less talking than the last one. 

Instead she let herself straight into the house, opening her corridor so it let out into the drawing room she’d exited from days prior. Enough time had passed that this room had been closed up as well, a sheet thrown over the chaise and dust, unbroken by footprints, starting to accumulate on the dark hardwood of the floor.

She stepped out into the foyer and looked around for signs of life—or at least signs that the house hadn’t actually been sold and Elizabeth moved out. No one here, either, but at least the hall table wasn’t also blanketed in a sheet. 

She was halfway up the stairs to the second floor when she remembered she had a calling card. Magic crackled from her hand, arced through the foyer and down through the floor in a bright flash. A woman’s frightened scream came from down below.

“Estrella, stay here!”

“Ma’am, wait!”

Still halfway up the staircase, Larxene leaned over the banister as Elizabeth ran into the foyer, pistol in hand and sword strapped to her belt. 

“Do you have an entire armoury in here?” 

Elizabeth froze, and her entire posture betrayed her eye roll as she turned to look up at Larxene. She levelled the pistol at her. “In fact I do, and if you keep showing up uninvited, you’re going to become intimately acquainted with it.”

Larxene took slow steps down the stairs, trailing her hand down the handrail. The pistol followed her with every step. “Who else is here?” she asked.

Elizabeth glanced the way she’d come. “My maid.”

“So it wasn’t you screaming?”

Elizabeth looked offended. “Of course not.”

“Right, _Your Highness_ wouldn’t be afraid of a little lightning,” Larxene said. She reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped out onto the tile. Elizabeth rolled her eyes again, this time at the title.

“I’ve asked about you in the port. No one’s heard of you, so you aren’t from here, and no one by the name you gave is on any of the manifests of the ships that have come in recently, either.” She paced closer until she stood barely five feet from Larxene. Wearing that same coat, her hair pulled back in a rough braid to trail over her shoulder, she could have stepped straight from Larxene’s imagining of her.

The pistol’s hammer clunked as Elizabeth cocked it. “So, where have you come from?” 

Larxene looked at her skeptically. A week must have passed, if not longer, if she’d had time to do all that. So she must’ve noticed that Larxene also wasn’t in Port Royal when she’d been looking. 

“If you aren’t going to shoot me, you should put that down,” she said instead of answering, and stepped forward enough that the end of the gun pressed against the breast of her coat. 

Elizabeth darted a glance down at the pistol, then looked back up, meeting Larxene’s eyes. “You can survive a gunshot, can you?”

Larxene shrugged, not particularly interested in risking it, but she didn’t think Her Highness was actually going to shoot her. She claimed to be a _reformed_ pirate, after all.

“Witch,” she pointed out, figuring Her Highness’s word was as good as any, and put her hand on top of the gun. Elizabeth let her push it downward and out of the way, and didn’t step back when Larxene stepped forward again, closing the space and trapping their hands and the pistol between them.

Larxene trailed her free hand upward, brushed her fingertips along Elizabeth’s arm and across the back of her collar. Her fingertips glanced across the bare skin at Elizabeth’s nape, and Her Highness’s breath caught. Larxene smirked and cupped her neck, drew her head downward for a kiss. 

Elizabeth’s lips tasted faintly sweet, like jam. And when Larxene pressed her luck, she tasted the bitter tannins of tea clinging to Elizabeth’s tongue.

Elizabeth pulled back and bit at her lower lip, considering Larxene with a look. “Do you routinely go around kissing women whose first names you don’t even know?” She brushed Larxene’s hand off her neck and took a step back, resetting the hammer on the pistol and tucking it away in her belt as she went.

“You did your homework on me. You think I didn’t do the same, _Elizabeth_?”

Her Highness’s eyes flashed.

Larxene smiled. “Any other questions?” she asked, and closed the distance between them again. She brought her hand up to play with the lapel of Elizabeth’s coat, felt a frisson of pleased surprise when Elizabeth mimicked her, one slender hand coming up to play with the chain on her cloak.

“Yes, actually.” She twined the chain through her fingers and pulled, tugging Larxene up and forward and forcing her to catch her balance on one foot. “I seem to remember asking you where you came from.”

Larxene rolled her eyes and offered a tight smile. Balanced on her toes with her back arched, chin upward, chest thrust forward, it took more effort to keep herself from falling into Elizabeth than seemed worth it. She let her balance slip and tumbled forward, forcing Elizabeth to catch her or push her away, and in one quick motion used their off-kilter balance to switch their positions. Elizabeth took a sharp step backward, regaining her equilibrium with her eyes wide and angry. 

“You did,” Larxene said. She closed the space between them again, backing Her Highness up against the banister before she had a chance to fully recover from Larxene flipping them. “But I’m _really_ not interested in answering that question.”

“I will remind you that I am armed.”

“Yes, so am I,” Larxene said. 

Elizabeth flicked her gaze downward, traced down Larxene’s coat and back up again from the hem. Her attention lingered on Larxene’s waist, as though hoping to see the bump of a holster disturbing the line of the leather.

Larxene reached out, dared to trail a finger down Her Highness’s chest, between her breasts. Her finger caught the edge of fabric where the slack lacing left the neckline opened in a ‘vee.’ She snuck a glance up through her eyelashes, found Her Highness watching her intently, and tugged the fabric until she could just brush one finger along the curve of a breast.

Elizabeth’s breath caught. 

Larxene smirked up at her, caressed the soft skin of her breast and traced circles around Her Highness’s nipple with a thumb. She leaned in, caught up Elizabeth’s lips with her own again and pushed forward, pressed Her Highness back until the rails stopped her moving any further and her hips rested against the stair risers. 

She slid her thigh between Elizabeth’s legs, touched her tongue to her lips. And Her Highness’s lips parted and she shifted, pressed down against Larxene’s thigh at the same time. 

Their tongues passed against each other and Larxene relented after a moment, letting Her Highness guide the kiss while she tried to find a better position, through three layers of clothes and her heavy Organization coat, to grind against Elizabeth’s thigh. 

Elizabeth’s heart sped up under Larxene’s hand, her nipple tightened beneath Larxene’s thumb. And a moment later she pulled her head back, stood on her toes away from Larxene’s leg. 

“My maid,” she said, a bit of a gasp to her words. “She’s going to come looking.”

With a roll of her eyes, Larxene danced her fingers down Elizabeth’s torso. Her shirt had fallen askew, leaving her left breast exposed to the air, nipple tight and hard. Her lips were swollen, hair a bit mussed, expression set and obstinate but her flushed face belying any ire.

“So send her away,” she said, and cupped Elizabeth’s cunt through her trousers. 

The stubborn look remained, even as Her Highness shifted to find pressure against the heel of Larxene’s hand. “She hates leaving me alone.”

“Yet you seem to be the one defending her.” Larxene rolled her eyes again and straightened Elizabeth’s shirt. She tugged the laces back into place, straightened her coat lapels, then pinched her nipple through her shirt for good measure. Elizabeth hissed.

Larxene stepped away. Elizabeth ran her hands over her hair, tugged her braid into place, adjusted the cuffs of her coat.

“You’re _presentable_. Send her away.”

Elizabeth cast a cool up-and-down look at her. “A reminder, this is my house.”

“Yes, yes. You’re the _King_. Now _get rid_ of your _subject_ so her very existence stops interrupting us.” Larxene smirked at her. “I’ll be waiting upstairs.”

And before Her Highness could object again, Larxene opened a dark corridor to Elizabeth’s chambers and disappeared through it.

A fire burned low in the grate, providing the only light of the room. Larxene sparked the wick of the oil lamp on the table nearby. The furnishings that remained in Her Highness’s bedroom suggested it had once been soft and feminine, much more “governor’s daughter” than “Pirate King.” Now it looked nearly as closed up and abandoned as the rest of the house, though still well taken care of by the lady’s maid. 

A travelling trunk sat against the wall next to the door and Larxene opened the lid a crack. A barely worn corset sat atop a pile of haphazardly packed gowns and petticoats, ribbons and lace froth peeking out around the edges. Larxene snickered and, holding the trunk open with one hand, pushed past the top layer to see more of the same below.

“Do you have _any_ sense of privacy?”

“Do pirates?” She closed the trunk, dropping the heavy lid the last few inches so it landed with a thud. “It seems to me, it doesn’t matter _how_ big the boat is, you’d be on top of one another all the time.”

Elizabeth stood in the doorway with her sword, again, pointing at Larxene. “ _King_ ,” she said. “The title is not utterly meaningless.”

“The title you renounced, you mean?” Larxene asked. Then without waiting for the answer, “Your maid is gone, I assume.”

“Estrella won’t bother us,” Her Highness said. She gestured with the sword. “Before I allow you to stay, I have a condition.”

Larxene had returned to eyeing the way Elizabeth’s coat fit, the flare of the leather around her hips, the confidence in her posture as she levelled the point of her sword at Larxene’s chest. She only begrudgingly acknowledged that Her Highness was still drawing this out. “Of course you do. What is it?”

“You and yours”—here she gestured to Larxene’s coat—“leave Port Royal. We have issues enough of our own without outsiders coming along.”

Larxene’s libido cooled at the very _mention_ of Luxord, however oblique. “Whatever,” she said. It wasn’t in her power to control what any other Organization member did, but she had no intention of admitting that. “Fine.”

Elizabeth’s expression was doubtful, but after a moment of staring Larxene down—in which Larxene offered no further confirmation or denial about her future intentions toward Port Royal—she dropped her sword to the top of the dress-filled chest. An instant later she’d reversed their downstairs positions and was pushing Larxene back until her legs knocked against the foot of the bed.

Larxene smirked at her. “ _Finally_.”

“Well,” Elizabeth said, her eyes narrowed and her voice sly and low. “I had to be sure of your motives.”

Larxene snorted and tugged at the tie on the end of Elizabeth’s braid until it came loose. “I thought I was, how did you put it, _embarrassingly forward_?”

Elizabeth tossed her head, shaking her hair loose from the braid so it spilled around her shoulders and across her back. “Oh, you most certainly are,” she said, and tugged the chain on Larxene’s coat so she was inches away. “But I never claimed to not be the same.” 

Delight flickered through Larxene, chased by heat that followed it down to pool in her stomach. “Show me,” she urged.

Her Highness snorted, and did. She slid her hands across Larxene’s shoulders, brushed her fingers across the nape of her neck, sending a shiver down Larxene’s spine. Then tangled her fingers in Larxene’s hair and pulled her head so their lips met.

Her Highness still tasted of the tea and jam she’d been in the middle of when Larxene had barged in, and Larxene ate eagerly at the taste. She fumbled at Elizabeth’s sword belt, blindly tugging at it until the buckle loosened under her fingers and the belt fell to the floor.

Elizabeth’s hands tugged more insistently at Larxene’s hair and she slid her leg between Larxene’s, started grinding herself against Larxene’s thigh again. Larxene shifted to brace back on one of the bedposts, balanced them there for a moment while she tried to find friction against Elizabeth’s leg, then rolled them to the side to land on the duvet when she couldn’t.

They pawed at one another, Larxene growing increasingly frustrated by the too many layers of clothes in the way. She rolled them, got on top straddling Elizabeth’s waist and nudged back the front folds of her coat so she lay, winsome and framed by the leather. Her Highness tugged her back down, her hands at the back of Larxene’s neck, running down her shoulders, across her arms, to her waist where she found the still-closed zipper of her jacket.

Her Highness let out a frustrated noise, pulled at the leather. 

Larxene snickered, unclasped the chain and threw it off to the side to thump heavily onto the rug. She got her zipper down to her waist, intending to make her coat follow, before Elizabeth pushed her hands aside and shoved the coat down her shoulders.

“Far enough,” she grunted as the coat fell around Larxene’s waist.

Larxene snickered again, sitting back, straddling Her Highness’s waist. Elizabeth’s hands slid under her shirt, warm but rough against her skin. _Pirate_ , the first sign she’d ever been exposed to life outside of her life as the governor’s daughter in her great house on the hill. 

Larxene reached behind her and unclipped her bra as Elizabeth’s hands reached it and squeezed her over it. She pulled her shirt off, flung it to the side and let her bra follow. Arousal and the room’s cool air tightened her nipples instantly. Her Highness ran her fingers back and forth across the tight nubs, sending heat shooting down into her groin. Larxene’s eyes fluttered shut and she ground against Elizabeth’s hips as Elizabeth started rolling her nipples between two fingers. 

One of Larxene’s own hands slid down her stomach and into her pants to play with her clit. She bit her lip, a cresting wave of pleasure rising through her and making her grind harder and faster against the seam in her pants, frustration building in her when the friction wasn’t quite enough.

The air around them frizzled with electricity. Her Highness raised her hips to meet Larxene’s.

Closer… closer…

Elizabeth pinched down, Larxene’s fingers were slick with her own wet where she ground down against them.

Larxene threw her head back, heard a sizzle in the corner of the room as her magic burst out. White behind the back of her eyes and she gasped, pleasure shooting through her and her legs tightening a moment before the tension left her body and she sagged forward.

Her Highness gave her a beat, then caressed her wrist where it disappeared into her pants. She dragged her fingers up larxene’s bare arm, trailed her hand back across her breasts.

“My turn,” she said, and a moment later Larxene was on her back, their positions flipped. Larxene could have reacted quickly enough to stop her, really, if she hadn’t been limp and mellow from an orgasm the moment before. And if she was less curious about what Her Highness would do next.

“And what do you want me to do from here?” she asked, voice low, lazy to her own ears. Elizabeth’s jacket still framed her, the leather cool where it trailed against the flush of Larxene’s torso.

Elizabeth made a low hum in her throat, then tossed her head, flipping her hair around her. “You can start with undressing me.”

“Demanding, aren’t you?”

“ _King_.” 

Larxene snickered, making no attempt to move. “Get rid of the shirt, leave the coat.” She locked eyes with Elizabeth, measured the challenge there, met it with her own. Heat started building in her again, and she lazily brought one hand up to her chest, circling her own nipple. Elizabeth’s glare deepened and Larxene smiled. “Get rid of the shirt, leave the coat, and I’ll touch you again instead of myself.”

“Demanding, aren’t you?” But she was already shrugging her shoulders out of the coat, then pulling the white linen shirt over her head and tossing it aside.

Larxene lay back and enjoyed the view. Elizabeth’s hands and face may have shown the slightest signs of her pirate life, but her chest was soft cream, unblemished by any hard life or weather, her breasts soft and topped with blush nipples hardened and darkened from their play.

“Coat back on,” Larxene said, still devoting all her attention to herself and refusing to even move to touch Elizabeth until she did as she was told. She rolled her nipples, felt moisture starting to build between her legs again as they hardened between her fingers. Started shifting her hips, trying to see if she could find pressure against Her Highness where she sat atop her.

Elizabeth smirked, shifting her hips away from Larxene’s searching, and pulled her coat back on. “Well?” she asked, gazing down expectantly. She reached behind her, and the lightest touch of her fingers brushed the dampness between Larxene’s legs before she pulled her hand away again as quickly as it had come.

“Tease,” Larxene snarled. 

Elizabeth leaned down, her chest brushing against Larxene’s, her skin cooler where Larxene’s was still flushed from orgasm and her rekindling arousal. “If you think,” she murmured, starting to trail one finger across Larxene’s chest. Her lips were inches from Larxene’s. “That you’ll get more than you give here, you have severely misread me as a target.”

She touched her lips to Larxene’s. Larxene deepened the kiss, caught Her Highness’s lips more surely, pressed her luck with her tongue. Elizabeth resisted for a moment, a chiding sound coming from her throat, then relented. Her tongue slid alongside Larxene’s, taking over the kiss until she pulled away wearing a self-satisfied smirk. 

“I wouldn’t _be_ here if I had misread you,” Larxene said. She found the buttons on Elizabeth’s pants with a bit of blind feeling, nudged them through their holes and pushed at the fabric. 

“No?” Her Highness shifted, helping Larxene to get rid of her pants so they fell down around her knees. Then kicked them off, so she sat atop her again in only her pantalettes and that leather coat. 

“No,” Larxene said, and Elizabeth took a sharp breath in through her nose in response when Larxene reached up and cupped her breasts, catching her nipples and rolling them to head off her next response. She tugged Elizabeth back down toward her, caught one breast between her lips. Rolled her tongue around the nipple, feeling it harden in her mouth. Her Highness’s chest shuddered against her lips, her breath catching loud in Larxene’s ears.

Larxene sucked at her nipple, still rolling the other in her fingers until Elizabeth was making soft noises. Her hands mirrored Larxene’s attention, pinches fumbling and erratic, and increasingly so when Larxene scraped her teeth against the nipple in her mouth before releasing it. She blew cool air across the wet nub, gave it a quick pinch, fingers slipping in her own saliva, and licked a path across Her Highness’s chest to her other breast. Her skin tasted of sweat, with a hint of lingering perfumed soap.

She took Elizabeth’s other breast in her mouth, treated it to the same attention she’d given the other. Her Highness groaned and shifted above her so she could grind against Larxene’s torso. Her cotton pantalettes grew warm and damp against Larxene’s bare stomach, and she scraped her fingernails once against the nipple she played with before trailing her hand down and sliding it between their bodies. Her finger nudged apart her lips through the fabric, slid up and down building slickness beneath it and Elizabeth pressed into the heel of her hand. 

Her breathing grew more erratic, fingers came to a halt on Larxene’s chest as she just hung on and pushed herself over the edge with a cry. Larxene took her mouth off her nipple, wiped her hand off on a part of Her Highness’s underwear that hadn’t soaked through as Elizabeth slumped and caught her breath.

“One for one,” Larxene said.

“Keeping score?”

“Aren’t you?”

Her Highness smirked and leaned down, pressed her lips to Larxene’s and pinched her nipple hard enough that she hissed into the kiss. 

“Yes,” Larxene said when they broke apart again. “And it’s my turn.”

“We’ll see.”

The game continued, off and on with neither conceding defeat or exhaustion, until Larxene let it grow late enough to acknowledge that spending much longer in Port Royal could be to her detriment with the Organization. She did, after all, have a job to do. 

“Don’t wait up for me,” she said as she got dressed and ready to depart, with as much sarcastic teasing as she could layer in her voice countless orgasms later and feeling light as air. The room smelled of sex, the bedsheets were half on the floor, pillows askew, and Her Highness laying wanton in the middle of the wreck of a bed, her eyes half-closed and threatening to surrender to sleep.

Larxene felt much the same way, as much as she didn’t want to show it.

“Mmm, don’t make this a regular occurrence,” Her Highness said. “I won’t be here next time you come by.”

“Oh, I can find you if I want to.”

“You can certainly try.”

Larxene laughed and waggled her fingers in a mocking wave. “I’ll be back, _Your Highness_. I found you once, I can certainly do it again.”

Clothes back in order, and hair as settled back into its style as she was going to get, Larxene opened her dark corridor back to the Graveyard right there in the middle of the bedroom.

Elizabeth pushed herself up on one elbow. “What…?”

Larxene waved again as she stepped into it. “Our secret. All hail the King.”

And if she never saw the Pirate King of Port Royal again, well, it was fun while it had lasted.


End file.
